Comment by aplavin
17 hours ago
Actually, the jet was the first part of the app – I wanted to just see and "feel" relativistic beaming in practice, in physical space. And it was fun and instructive indeed! Really puts into perspective how tight is the jet vs line-of-sight alignment for those bright jets we see across the universe. And how beaming is the dominant effect that determines the jet/quasar appearance.
I guess the fact we see any at all given the distance and small angles just emphasizes how many there are out there...
Yes, even observing a single jet pointed towards us (typically, at just a few degrees) is routinely used a strong argument for existence of many similar powerful sources, just misaligned with the Earth. Arguments like:
- See a jet at redshift z ~ 6? There are thousands more!
- See that well-aligned blazar jets are among strongest gamma ray (or neutrino) sources? Gamma rays/neutrinos are preferentially emitted along the jet direction, otherwise we'd seen thousands more equally strong sources.